Continuum acquired the kernel of its business from Zenith in late 2011, but the relationship quickly went from collegial to confrontational as Zenith's management immediately started having problems with investors back in India.

In renewing the free conversion offer this week, Continuum CEO Michael George said, "News reports are questioning Zenith Infotech's future, and hundreds of MSPs have come to us concerned regarding the safety of their clients' data, and we are helping them to provide the best service for their clients as easily and as cost-effectively as we can."

George was referring to the Business Standard, which reported in mid-December that the Bombay High Court had ordered Zenith Infotech to sell off its cloud computing business to repay bondholders. At the time, Zenith Infotech CEO Akash Kumar Saraf said he planned an appeal.

The Continuum pitch is a more aggressive version of the one the company rolled out a year ago with the introduction of Continuum BDR Revive in January 2013. At that time, George had said, "We've heard from many of our partners that they want to repurpose existing hardware that they have already invested in."

As before, BDR Revive is a re-imaging tool stored on a USB stick, and it works on hardware appliances from Zenith Infotech, Dell AppAssure, Axcient, HEROWare, Chartec and others meeting the minimum hardware requirements of a 64-bit dual core processor, at least 8 GB of RAM, 2 NIC cards and 7200 RPM HDDs.

Plugging in the memory stick and entering a conversion code turns a supported hardware appliance into a Continuum Vault appliance in about 30 minutes, a Continuum spokesperson said. According to Continuum, the free BDR Revive offer represents a value of at least $350 and is worth more for MSPs converting multiple, high-capacity BDRs.